Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon

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This flight's been grounded due to technical problems. Have a nice day.

By Craig Harris

It's good advice to never believe a game can be as good as the screens on the back of the box, and Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon is a perfect example of why this is. In still images, THQ's Star Wars-based action shooter for the Game Boy Advance looks absolutely gorgeous and faithful to the brand, almost too good to be true. And when you see it in motion, you see that it is indeed too good to be true. As fantastic as the game looks in a frame-by-frame fashion, in action Flight of the Falcon is an absolute mess of a GBA game. Only if your Star Wars collection extends into the obscure areas of pajamas, pastas, and breakfast cereals should you bother picking this game up, because it will take a very forgiving eye and mind to accept this game as anything but a very sluggish, extremely limited, and unbelievably frustrating Star Wars experience.

Features

Missions based around Episode IV, V, and VI

Hidden mini-game

Password save for Episodes and high scores

The premise of Flight of the Falcon starts out extremely promising in both its premise and its execution. In the game, players take control of the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo's pride and joy in a series of missions based around the first three (and arguably the only good) Star Wars films: A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.Flight of the Falcon also promises a stunning 3D engine for its graphics and gameplay, something that's not all that common on the handheld systems due to its hardware limitations. But it's pretty clear why many developers don't try a 3D engine like this once you experience what's been done in this game. The real charm of the Star Wars films is its attention to its energetic space battle sequences, and these theatrical sequences are rendered on the Game Boy Advance as incredibly chuggy, slow, and slightly unresponsive missions that go on forever.

Flight of the Falcon opens up with the usual Star Wars fanfare and storyscrawl, but the impact this fanfare's rendition has on gamers' ears is a good indication of the sloppyness within the rest of the experience; although the rest of the design features decent quality sound effects and music, the Star Wars theme that accompanies the introduction is absolutely the pits. Definitely a step backwards from the past Star Wars games released on the GBA. But this is only a minor issue compared to what lies beyond.

The first mission puts players in a behind-the-ship view of the Millennium Falcon as it blasts its way through wave after wave of incoming Tie Fighters. It's similar in design to Star Fox, but far less controllable due to the fact that the Falcon feels like it's sliding along a flat plane. No matter which direction the ship is heading, the blasters continue to fire straight ahead at a point in space marked by a floating crosshair...and since that crosshair doesn't move in relation to the ship, it's incredibly difficult to figure out how far that target is hovering in front of the Falcon. Which means it's tough to target the Tie Fighters especially when they're well in front of the crosshairs. Worse yet, this mission ends only when a set amount of Tie Fighters have been blasted, which can take several bland minutes of mindless swerving and shooting; there's absolutely no variety in this action, and just gets tiring the longer the missions go on.

This introduction mission is pretty much the blueprint for the rest of the game. The levels go to Mos Eisley in a race-the-clock landspeeder level, or cut across the surface or inside the trench of the Death Star with an X-Wing. But these missions all feature the same perspective and slidey control, and when they actually get more complex the engine just can't keep up with the action. Any level that features more than just open space and basic ships to shoot chug noticeably; the GBA just isn't a 3D system, and no matter how much a developer thinks its 3D engine is "da bomb," they tend to throw more at it than it's capable. And this happens far too often in Flight of the Falcon.

And as much as you'd think the biggest issue is its 3D engine, it isn't. As mentioned above, the levels go on for far longer than they should, artificially dragging out the length of the game by forcing players all the way back to the beginning of the level if they happen to lose their ship. But that's not the worst of it: THQ opted out of a cartridge save for Flight of the Falcon, so the developer instead put in a password system. But instead of rewarding players with a password at the end of each mission, the game only gives out a password at the end of an episode. And that could drag on for nearly an hour because each episode has several missions attached to it. Unacceptable. And the game has a high score list with an interesting (but ultimately useless) "import high score" password system. Useless because it's a waste of time...why bother inputting a high score if it's going to get wiped when turning off the system?

The Verdict

I wanted to like Flight of the Falcon. Really. The screenshots had me abuzz with the feeling that the GBA could potentially get a handheld Rogue Squadron. I kept my enthusiasm on a realistic level, though, seeing many attempts at a fully 3D engine fall flat on the Game Boy Advance. As powerful and efficient as this 3D engine is, it cannot handle what the level designers wanted to pull off in the game. And the game design itself isn't any better; the missions are dreadfully too long and feature very little change in gameplay regardless of the settings and craft to control. Forget what Luke said about the Millennium Falcon the first time he set eyes on it...this game is a hunk of junk.